THE HISTORY OF OUR TREEHOUSE:
First of all we want to tell you who we are, where we live and from where we got this strange idea . We are five "original-treehouser". Whereas we don't have to forget that we where actually seven guys that worked very hard, for a very long time. We consist of Patrick, Paul, Bernhard, Christoph and David. These are the ones that "live" on it regularly. The ones that you are not supposed to forget are: Daniel, the brother of Berhard, and Patrick's brother who was a graet help for the construction. Our age-groups reach from 14-22 years of age.
We normally live in our "normal" houses in Linz, the capital of upper-Austria. In 1992 we beagn to build a treehouse on the same place as now, but this one, was a lot smaller and was only built out of natural materials. (ropes and wood only). Bernhard, a scout of the "ROYAL-RANGERS", introduced this first idea. Because we did not use any proper nails or wooden boards, the whole construction collapsed after one winter. The construction idea was already exactly the same as the new one.
In 1993 we wanted to continue the idea of living in the forest and therefore we built a "hut" on the ground. It was simply a pit with a roof made only out of branches, covered with bark of all kinds of trees. At this point we have to thank "Onkel-Rinde" (tranl. uncle-bark), an unknown, very frienldy, farmer who supplied us with his left-over pieces of bark, from his deforestation.
In early spring 1996 we thought of building a hut somewhere in the forest again. We finally all decided to build a treehouse, because you can prevent animals, like bugs, and spiders, to get into it. (Now we know that spiders can even climb up trees!!!)
The main construction was quickly built. We got the wood from building sites all over the place. After the first-house was built, we decided to enlarge it because it was not really big...
Again the first pairs of wooden blanks were fastly constructed, but unfortunately we could not finish it before the winter of 1997. After the winter, in spring 1999, we decided just to make a nice terrace, with benches and a table, out of the enlargement. Now also this is finished and we are all happy!!!
You all probably think that we guys must be completely nuts, because building treehouses in our age can't be normal. But there is one aspect you have to consider and that is:
HAVE YOU EVER BUILT, SEEN, OR MANAGED TO STEP ON A TREEHOUSE LIKE OURS???
We can understand your reactions, but only if you have a treehouse like ours, where it's even warm in winter, with ice and snow outside, then you can understand us. It is a perfect meeting, or better relaxion point for us all. We had great parties on it already. Nobody tells you what you should do. You can be loud, atleast to a certain extent (because we are in a forest, and neighbours live not far away).
A treehouse, or as you say in
Austria (=Baumhaus) is probably the best location to meet
friends. For example we made certain laws that everybody has to
respect. One of them is: You are not allowed to be rude, or
quarrell with one of your "treehouse-mates" in the
treehouse. We introduced these rules that conflicts of opinions
don' t happen.
Comments to:phaebig@hotmail.com